The Fibonacci post has generated a longer comment thread than anything else I’ve written. I was just digging a little dirt and must have hit a power line. The question I tried to address, was “is there any physics in Fibonacci, or is it just a mathematician’s curiosity?” Here’s the physics that came back: a) AJ Meyer has looked at the galactic rotation curves, and pointed out that “rigid-body” rotation which is observed, can be obtained by having a mass which increases with radius. Now since we can look at galaxies from the side, and they don’t get thicker with radius,  it would seem that this increase in mass must be due to something else. Gallo argues that it could Read More ›

Earlier this year, the work of Nir Goldman and colleagues was noted (here). Using sophisticated computer modeling tools, it was concluded that cometary impacts could generate C-N bonded oligomers that subsequently break apart to form a glycine-containing complex. This research has now been published in Nature Chemistry, resulting in a new flurry of discussion about the shock synthesis of life. It is known from Stanley Miller’s experiments that amino acids can be synthesized in a reducing atmosphere. However, the evidence for such an atmosphere has become less convincing with time – and even a neutral atmosphere means the Miller route for generating amino acids is unproductive. Cometary impacts, however, can make this point irrelevant, as is explained by John Timmer Read More ›

Many members of the ID community will no doubt have been relieved to see the back of 2009. The secular establishment took the opportunity provided by the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, to launch a defence of their hero’s largely discredited theory. The popular science bookshelves were crammed with the uncritical, credulous hagiography that is the hallmark of the evolutionary genre, with their hysterical denunciations of ID inadvertently providing a fascinating insight into life on the wrong end of a paradigm shift. However, a careful scrutiny of those bookshelves would also have revealed a slim volume by the British science journalist, James Le Fanu, entitled Why Us? Read More ›

In recent years, the development of Intelligent Design has been associated largely with the USA. This week marks the launch of the Centre for Intelligent Design UK (website here). The Centre brings ID back to its roots, which can be traced right to the early developments of science in the UK and wider Europe. Many of the early pioneers of modern science held the view that the natural world was intelligible because it was itself the product of a rational mind. The new Centre is set up by a network of volunteers across the UK, with a variety of areas of expertise and professional interests – as diverse as medicine, science, education, business, and law. It exists as a non-profit organisation and Read More ›

The Fibonacci sequence is one of those math marvels that even elementary students can appreciate. Like the discovery of the √2, it possesses this element of mystery that makes Pythagoras‘ harmonic series look like a rubber-band shoe-box next to a concert grand. Pythagoras famously drowned the fellow who discovered that √2 was neither even nor odd. It went against his religion. Fortunately for Gödel, the Pythagoreans did not control peer review when he demonstrated that unprovability was a whole lot worse than irrational numbers, but all math was  “incomplete” and unable to exclude ambiguous theorems. But if we don’t demand that math obey our ideas of God, we can sit back an enjoy it. Here’s a YouTube video marvelling at Read More ›

This isn’t new, but I think it is pretty revealing of how the academic establishment deals with intelligent design. An Educator’s Guide to Dealing With Intelligent Design

Help me out here: are these simple but accurate descriptions of where each school of thought stands? (a) Naturalism (evolutionism) says that matter just happens to have the properties to sometimes spontaneously lead to life, life that can improve itself through evolution. (b) Theistic evolution says that God designed matter to have the properties to sometimes spontaneously lead to life, life that can improve itself through evolution. (c) Intelligent design says that matter does not have the properties to spontaneously lead to life, and that it is entirely unclear whether life can improve itself through evolution. It is more likely, perhaps even evident, that evolution can make, at most, only minor changes. Does this briefly describe each school of thought? Read More ›

Becoming eyeless is an adaptation of sorts, no? ScienceDaily (Sep. 15, 2010) – University of Maryland biologists have identified how changes in both behavior and genetics led to the evolution of the Mexican blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) from its sighted, surface-dwelling ancestor. In research published in the August 12, 2010 online edition of the journal Current Biology, Professor William Jeffery, together with postdoctoral associates Masato Yoshizawa, and Å pela Goricki, and Assistant Professor Daphne Soares in the Department of Biology, provide new information that shows how behavioral and genetic traits coevolved to compensate for the loss of vision in cavefish and to help them find food in darkness. This is the first time that a clear link has been identified Read More ›

At this writing I see that my post here has 122 responses, and that my post here has 81 responses. After examining all the dialog one thing seems clear to me: The ID versus Darwinian-materialism question must inevitably invade and challenge the core of the human soul. Don’t tell me that anyone doesn’t at least eventually ask the only substantive and meaningful questions: 1) Why am I here? 2) Where did I come from? 3) Is there any ultimate purpose or meaning in my life? If Darwinism is true, the answers to these questions are obvious: 1) No reason. 2) Chemistry and chance, which did not have you in mind. 3) No. You are an ephemeral product of 2). The Read More ›

Because of my many duties and responsibilities I post infrequently at UD. However, I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon: My posts seem to inspire a great amount of debate and very long threads, as is the case here. I have a theory about why this is the case. My thesis is that people like me, a former materialist atheist, who have been influenced by logic, reason, and evidence (i.e., the ID movement) represent the greatest threat to the reigning nihilistic and anti-intellectual Darwinian orthodoxy.

The ability of some insects to imitate the leaves and stems of plants has fascinated collectors and researchers alike. Wings, legs and other body parts can all contribute to a very effective disguise, a phenomenon known as mimesis. There has been speculation, of course, about the adaptive origins of the observed characters, but very little data is available on which to build anything robust. The fossil record is meagre. The earliest example before this year has been the Eocene leaf insect Eophyllium, already fully formed and functional (noted here). It conveyed no evidence to support a gradual transformation model. Since living examples of leaf mimesis relate to angiosperm plants, it has been inferred that leaf mimesis is a trait that Read More ›

Did you ever wonder how mosquitoes find you so quickly? Next time you might try not breathing because they are attracted to the carbon dioxide you exhale. And how do insects detect carbon dioxide? Studies have found two different neuron cell proteins (neural receptors) that seem to do the job. And they do the job exquisitely.  Read more

The scientific evidence does not favor evolution but that doesn’t mean we know all the answers. In fact some people who agree evolution is unlikely, nonetheless argue for common descent. This can be confusing because common descent is so often presented as integral to Darwin’s idea. But this need not be the case.  Read more

Do you still think God is good?

— George Williams, 1987 (p. 157)

In the commentary following the death on September 8 of leading neo-Darwinian theorist George C. Williams — go here for a representative selection — I’ve seen no mention of the considerable role of theology in Williams’s thought. I’d speculate that this silence follows naturally from the wide, albeit tacit, acceptance by Williams’s closest colleagues of the theological assumptions he made. As Ludwik Fleck (1979, 41) understood, a premise on which a group of scientists agree (if they are conscious of holding the premise at all) is not likely to elicit comment.

But no one can open The Pony Fish’s Glow (Basic, 1987) or Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, Challenges (Oxford, 1992) and miss the theology.
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An article was published in The Guardian today, featuring a discussion between Oxford Zoologist, Richard Dawkins, and the renowned broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough. Describing the transformation of a dragonfly larva into a dragonfly, the pair remarked, DA: I am a naturalist rather than a scientist. Simply looking at a flower or a frog has always seemed to me to be just about the most interesting thing there is. Others say human beings are pretty interesting, which they are, but as a child you’re not interested in Auntie Flo’s psychology; you’re interested in how a dragonfly larva turns into a dragonfly. RD: Yes, it’s carrying inside it two entirely separate blueprints, two different programmes. DA: I couldn’t believe it! I remember Read More ›